It is, of course, generally known to exercise muscles in the human body. Exercising helps to enhance or maintain physical fitness, health and wellness, and physical appearance. Exercise may be aerobic and focused on cardiovascular endurance, anaerobic and focused on increasing muscle strength, focused on flexibility and improving the range of motion of muscles and joints, and/or focused on toning, losing fat, and appearing lean.
Frequently, many people focus purely on enhancing or maintaining their physical appearance. This is a result of increasingly high societal standards of beauty. Historically, young, smooth skinned, well-proportioned people have been deemed beautiful. Generally, exercise is required to obtain or maintain young, smooth, and toned features.
Ordinarily, exercising the facial muscles is difficult because there are internal muscles that one cannot easily move or manipulate. It is generally known to exercise facial muscles by using apparatuses or one's hands to add resistance. These apparatuses may be placed inside one's mouth or held in place with one's hands. However, many apparatuses designed to exercise user's facial and/or neck muscles are difficult to use, and produce minimal effects.
Commonly, people take shortcuts or find alternatives to exercise in order to enhance or maintain their physical appearance. Electrotherapy is a passive means of exercising the facial muscles through electro-stimulation. Low electric currents are passed through the skin to force muscle contraction and simulate facial exercise. While generally safe, electrotherapy is not to be used by pregnant women, people with metal implants or pacemakers, or people using certain medications. In addition, the benefits of electro-stimulation are far from known, and the long-term implications of using electro-stimulation as a muscle exerciser is unknown.
Alternatively, cosmetic and plastic surgery can replace exercise to produce lean features and/or increase collagen within lips, for example, to produce full lips and other facial features. However, cosmetic surgery often involves higher risks, higher costs, and recurring surgical consults. Specifically, a rhytidectomy or a “facelift”, is becoming a more and more popular alternative to facial exercise. Facelifts involve cosmetic surgery that removes excess facial skin, tightens underlying tissue, and repositions the remaining facial skin unto a patient's face or neck. Facelifts require surgery, recovery time, and thousands of dollars. Moreover, while cosmetic surgery may produce results that are somewhat similar to facial and neck exercises, in reality the muscle are not strengthened and, indeed, may become weaker due to the recovery necessary from the surgeries.
Individuals with medical problems may lose certain control of muscles in their neck and face. For example, stroke victims may lose muscles control over parts of their neck and face, making it difficult to manipulate their muscles naturally. In addition, individuals with brain injuries or other brain issues may have speech impediments or other speech issues, making it difficult for a person to speak.
Therefore, a need exists for apparatuses and methods for aiding in facial, neck and/or lip toning.
Moreover, a need exists for hands free facial, neck and/or lip toning and/or strengthening apparatuses.
Furthermore, a need exists for cost-effective safe apparatuses and methods to replace expensive and risky surgeries and/or electro-stimulation.
Additionally, a need exists for apparatuses and methods that may be simple to use and efficiently provide strengthening and toning of muscles in the face and neck areas of a use.
A need exists for apparatus and methods that may be utilized routinely and regimented to produce increased muscle tone and control, and increased collagen production to specific facial areas.
In addition, a need exists for apparatuses and methods that increase blood flow to neck, throat and neck regions, and may increase skin collagen production for full lips and/or other facial features.